Edward G Pettit

The Mystery Writers of America aren't the only ones to give out an Edgar award. The White House Correspondents Association has an Edgar A Poe Memorial Award that "honors excellence in news coverage of subjects and events of significant national or regional importance to the American people."

I thought this was odd, but then again, Poe was a practicing journalist for his entire writing career. But the award isn't named for that Edgar. It's named in honor of Edgar Allen Poe (yes, he spelled his middle name with an e), the New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter. Here's his AP obit from 1998:

Edgar Allen Poe , a longtime Washington correspondent and columnist for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans who covered presidents from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton, had died at the age of 92.
Poe died Saturday at his home in Arlington, Va.
Starting work for The Times-Picayune on Easter Sunday 1930, Poe covered many of the major stories of the century, including being an eyewitness aboard the USS Missouri to the Japanese surrender in September 1945 that ended World War II.
He became the only correspondent to serve simultaneously as president of the White House Correspondents Association and the National Gridiron Club.
"Edgar was one of those rare journalists who enjoyed a reputation for fairness among politicians of all views, and our readers benefited from his unusual access to the powerful,'' said Ashton Phelps Jr., publisher of The Times-Picayune . "He kept readers informed when Louisiana had some of the most powerful members of Congress and provided insight on issues important to the state and the region.''
Former President George Bush called Poe "one of the truly greats.''

"Today's adversarial and hostile journalism can learn much from his life and example,'' Bush said."A true gentleman, he will be missed by all with whom he came into contact.''
Poe attended every presidential convention between 1940 and 1988, except for 1944, when he was a war correspondent in the Pacific. He was one of the first journalists ashore after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
After working The Mountain Eagle in his native Jasper, Ala., and then covering crime and sports in Alabama for The Birmingham News, he accepted an offer to work for The Times-Picayune.
He later worked for The Times-Picayune bureau in southern Mississippi and established himself as one of the newspaper's top political reporters. He moved to Washington in 1948 and was famed for his access to the powerful. Even during the darkest days of Watergate, when President Richard Nixon was at war with much of the media, he would talk to Poe.
"He is the perfect Southern gentleman,'' U.S. Sen. John Breaux, D-La., said of Poe.
Poe 's survivors include his wife, Frances; two sons, Edgar Allen Poe Jr. and Thomas L. Poe ; a sister, Elizabeth P. Kagle, of Jasper, Ala.; six granchildren and two great-grandchildren.

(The Poe scholar in me wants to correct the spelling of every one of those Allens.)

This year's winners of the award are Michael J. Berens and Ken Armstrong of the Seattle Times:

Berens and Armstrong won the Edgar A. Poe Memorial Award, which carries a $2,500 prize, for a three-part series in The Seattle Times that exposed the failure of hospitals in Washington state and across the country to control the deadly rise of the MRSA staph infection. Combining in-depth reporting and data analysis with the stories of victims and activists, the series explained the science and uncovered the public policies and corporate interests responsible for this epidemic. Online the series provided a searchable database, explained the reporters' methodology and invited reader comment.